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Tuesday, 20 September 2016

NASA backs X-plane development of twin-hull Aurora D8 airliner

In February, NASA announced that it wanted to use its New Aviation Horizons program to revive the famed X-plane that did so much to advance post-war aviation. Now the agency has awarded a six-month US$2.9 million contract to Manassas, Virginia-based Aurora Flight Sciences to develop a scaled demonstration version of its Aurora D8 subsonic commercial airliner. Described as "changing the paradigm," the D8 is designed to significantly improve airliner performance by 2027.